Now that I'm about to become a dad I have to seriously cut back on the gaming time. So now I have two options. I can either hand off the campaign to one of my players and let them DM it or seriously cut it down in frequency. I took it to a vote and the vote was evenly split.
What do?
Squash your crotchfruit.
>OP becoming a dad
Say goodbye to your freetime m8
sucks to be you
Congratulations to you and your husband. Did the paperwork take long?
On more serious note: Hand it over. Holding responsibility for something you already know won't be able to do properly only makes sense when you're getting paid for it.
Not op. You know it's kind of sad that you care more about free time than propagating your lineage. Your gonna be sad lonely shits when your old and grey.
Weekly works for me, were you doing it more than that?
Jokes on you, im already sad and lonely
>Your gonna be sad lonely shits when your old and grey.
You hang out with your grandparents much? Being old IS being lonely.
well at least your honest with yourself.
Actually my grandparents are dead. But when they were still alive yes actually, we did see them on a pretty regular basis, and after grampa passed grandma moved in with us so we could help her.
Because lying would make it better ?
Focus on the kid, get back to gaming once it can drink its own water
Go outside and walk around alone user
You'd be surprised what insight the world will give you.
No, but lots of people still do it. Denial is pretty common.
Join the club bud. Why else do you think we keep coming back here.
Aaand this got depressing fast. I say cut down on frequency for a while.
Define "insight"
I know. :(
>On more serious note: Hand it over. Holding responsibility for something you already know won't be able to do properly only makes sense when you're getting paid for it.
Yeah, that's definitely where I'm leaning.
I was doing it weekly. No way in hell I'm gonna be able to keep that up
Man, being a responsible adult blows. I hadn't planned on being a responsible adult for another 10 years.
That seems to be the prevailing opinion. Also, why depressing?
Give your players the session of their dreams
You'll stop feeling like your misanthropy comes out of nowhere. You'll actually see the reasons why you don't like people.
But user, OP is a married man!
swapping DMs mid-campaign is a bummer
Finish it, then let someone else DM the next one.
I don't dislike people in general, i just don't see the benefits or reason why is should getting married and having kids
>it's important to spawn, more important than anything else
It isn't though, you either conceptualize children as some sort of immortality in a vain attempt to combat your own mortality, or have an inflated ego where you believe that popping out a kid is your gift to the world, there really isn't any reason to contribute to the already overpopulated planet with an uncertain future.
...
it's not necessarily that it is important to spawn in and of itself, its that it provides me with benefits down the line. I'll have someone who will theoretically care for me in my old age.
Well, okay I guess that's legitimate too, so long as you understand the selfish reasoning behind your decision.
Personally I'm betting on there being domestic robots who can take care of me in another 60 years, that or dying before I get old, either works.
There is no certainty that they will take care of you when you're old
I am fully aware that i am a selfish bastard. i'm also aware that overpopulation isn't the only demographic problem in the world, and that on a localized scale a lack of children to replace the work force is very bad. my nation and demographic are sufficiently well off that unless there is some manner of extremely cataclysmic event we should weather whatever hardships come in the future as well as just about anyone can be expected to.
>ITT: Selfish people post selfish reasons on why they would want to have kids, then counter their own reasoning.
Look, you won't understand. I can never make you understand. You don't want kids until you do, and you'll never be able explain exactly why you both made the decision in the first place, but right now, I can't say I would change my decision for the world. Every small victory for him is like the biggest victory to me.
Not him, but "gaining Insight" is the reason most of us are here in the first place.
For the first time in my life I am seeing my life clearly, and I hate it.
When I look back, I see myriad of regrets. Opportunities bungled or lost due to cowardice or ineptitude, Forks in the road where my future could've gone amazingly if only I hadn't been such a fuckin idiot.
I look down and I see the outcome of every single mistake and failure, building up together to make a grand monument of disappointment, regret, and dissatisfaction. A shell of a man living a shell of a life, unable to grasp at even the most low-hanging of fruits that life has to offer, that the most Schmo of Joes had achieved.
I look forward And I see a long, boring, road to nowhere. A bleak path paved with more of the same, leading slowly but surely downhill, with the only remaining forks trailing off into the abyss. And when I look at this, at the legacy of my life so far, I don't know wether to feel despair, rage, or just exasperated annoyance, for the disappointment is only rivaled by the boredom.
Sometimes I think about taking those veering paths, just for the sheer novelty and change of pace. But I fear the abyss, and I have no wish to confront it.
So instead I come here to hang out you fuckers, to involved in some shitposting arguments, worldbuilding, and maybe even catch a story time or two.
No there isn't. But i can increase the probability of it by raising them correctly. And if i don't have them, then there is absolutely no chance they will because they won't exist, so i have a larger chance if they do. From my perspective your argument makes little sense, but that's just me.
Personally I don't hate all the people, but I think plenty of them, most of them, really are no good. So the first condition for starting a family would be finding woman that is worth my time in the long run and convincing her somehow that I'm worth her time (and trust me, the Veeky Forums habit would not be the worst obstacle).
Second condition would be material security. I grew up in poverty and would hate my kid to go through the same. While I'm in decent line of work, the economical situation of my country isn't particularly stable, so that means building big enough cushion.
Plus I can't trust my parents with babysitting, seeing as they were raising me I would not trust them with a child of my sworn enemy, let alone my own.
So yeah, it adds up. Before I get everything set the way I'm comfortable with it might be too late because my sack dries up or something.
Adopting some abandoned or neglected girl and grooming her into perfect waifu / daughteru in psychologically unhealthy but no doubt loving co-dependent relationship will always be an option though. I mean, if random Veeky Forums kraut can do it, so can I...
OR he just understands the whole utility function of biology really well.
Life Perpetuates. That is as close to a "meaning of life" as you will get without turning to religion or pseudophilosophy.
Good on you for passing on dem genes OP, know that you do your proto-cellular ancestors proud.
(For real though, just structure around it? Same thing happened to our GM, we just travel to his place and take smoke breaks whenever he needs to coddle or change the new PC. She cute as hell too, we bring toys and stuff. It's kinda weird actually, we're kinda raising the kid tribally, two of the players allready tried their hands changing her diapers.)
>I am fully aware that i am a selfish bastard.
Well then, I got no problem with you buddy, sorry for trying to pick a fight.
>that on a localized scale a lack of children to replace the work force is very bad.
In that case once again my bet is on robots, chances are automation is going to really start fucking with the workforce about as bad as they did during the industrial revolution some time during this century. Guess we just have different views of the future.
Shit. Trite as this may sound you can change man. I mean i'm glad to have you here, but i'm sure you could incrementally improve your life bit by bit.
>on a localized scale a lack of children to replace the work force is very bad
My country has the same issue. The fact that the... lineages... which are breeding the most are the ones that will never touch work as long as welfare exists certainly doesn't help.
....i think it's kind of strange that by asserting i'm a bad person i avoided an argument, and that you don't have a problem with me because i know i'm an ass. Generally i would think people would have a problem with the guy who knowingly acts in a fashion that is reprehensible, rather than the man who does what he thinks is good and right.
>Robots are the future
Well i mean yes. You are correct. Automation is a thing and it will get progressively more advanced. I still think we will need the human element. I'm also uncertain of how far robots will be able to go, and i don't know how long we will have the resources we need to make them work. Furthermore even if we have robots, robots don't bring in income they can funnel to me when i am no longer able to provide for myself. Even if basic jobs are replaced by robots, that's not the work i do, and i don't imagine it would be the work my kids will do either.
Yeah, right. That's called depression.
Go get some groovy drugs.
Sometimes im in the same spot, the trick is to not think about it.
What? Were you expecting me to cheer you up about it? The pointlessness you're describing is called the human condition.
On the bright side you're no worse off than everyone else. They just don't realize it, or have enough distractions to keep them from those thoughts.
The best concrete advice i can give you is seek help? Depression is a killer, i had it once, i read the statistics
Therapy or antidepressants are viable temporary solutions untill you get better. Go get them, it's important. A broken psyche is no different from a broken bone, just a lot harder to fix easily.
You'd go to the doctors if you broke your leg right?
Raising kids for the vague hope that they will tend to you once you become old just seems to be too much for too little imo
>Life Perpetuates. That is as close to a "meaning of life" as you will get
But it isn't meaning, it's a functional definition. Meaning implies some sort of intent, and assuming by your post you are nonreligious, that does not exit. Life's purpose is no more to replicate than an igneous rock's purpose is to be an igneous rock.
Anyways continuing off tangent, what to me makes humans relatively special among life is our ability to willingly choose to forgo many of our instincts (such as self replication).
Well there is also the emotional satisfaction involved. But that is a subjective thing, so i won't try to argue for it.
Here is the thing, a lot of things are uncertain. You can fail at any number of things. Just because i apply for a job doesn't mean i will get it. Just because i work hard doesn't mean i will succeed in life. Just because you go to college doesn't mean you'll get rich. Does that mean i shouldn't work hard and i shouldn't apply? That people shouldn't bother with college? In my opinion no. There are no certainties in life except that if you never try you never get anything at all. In my opinion. Better to try. It's also not that vague of a hope. Until recently it was pretty standard actually. In Asian countries it still is standard, and it is the standard behavior of every one of my relatives, and most of the people i know in my community, so unless the media manages to poison my children against me (which is sadly likely) i don't think it's a crap-shot.
End your game through apocalypse like they did with oWoD
As my father used to say to me
"Life suck, big time"
I said "as close to"
And yeah, humans being special is a point of view i often hear expressed from humans.
(although my sampling demographic may be biased)
A human choosing to not replicate is as special and meaningful as a bacteria with a terminal mutation.
The desire to not replicate is, to be frank, a trait that evolution -very- heavily selects against.
But yeah, we do need to fix this overpopulation problem. I vote the other gene-bags start.
(seriously though, bringing up a well-educated child from a western world will, probably, contribute a lot more to solving these problems than the alternative, well-educated humans are ressources more than problems)
He sounds like a pragmatic man.
Well, if you want kids, i won't change your mind
Me however, i prefer being alone
And if you don't want them i know i am unlikely to change your's either. I'm just explaining my position. Good talking with you user. Enjoy your solitude and freedom from responsibility.
It'll pretty hard to prove it wasn't just SIDS
I'm actually surprised it took this long.
Being alone aint that bad m8
>Generally i would think people would have a problem with the guy who knowingly acts in a fashion that is reprehensible, rather than the man who does what he thinks is good and right.
That's probably true. I guess I'm just an odd duck, but what I personally cannot stand is the sort of hypocrisy that people have who believe what they do is always right, while also holding beliefs that would say what they are doing is not right. For instance in this example, lots of people end up having a kid for what is ultimately selfish reasons while framing it as a good act, all while at the same time they think selfishness is wrong. That contradiction in professed belief and deed is what annoys me. So it doesn't really bother me in the end if someone does something selfish knowing it is selfish but still chooses to do it without self or other deception. Maybe I'm just an arsehole though.
>Automation is a thing and it will get progressively more advanced. I still think we will need the human element
We will admittedly need some human element, but it will likely be a lot smaller than it is now. Which is something I find worrying considering the population is generally increasing, all the while how many people we actually need for many tasks is decreasing (inb4 an economist friend mentions how in a pure and theoretical capitalist society there can never be enough labor)
>I'm also uncertain of how far robots will be able to go [or the] resources we need to make them work.
For the most part robots are actually quite efficient, and automation is usually lighter on resources than a lot of other methods of manufacture.
>robots don't bring in income when i am no longer able to provide for myself.
That's actually a good point, I had not considered that I was mostly thinking of a fully stocked retirement plan. My apologies.
>Even if basic jobs are replaced by robots, that's not the work i do
Out of curiosity, if you don't mind the question, may I ask what it is you do?
It really isn't. I understand that. People are complicated and relationships are hard. But i think it's worth it. I don't look down on anyone who thinks differently though. I didn't mean to imply that i do.
Will your players still have a game on the weeks you're not available? If not, then it isn't fair to deny them a regular game because of your personal responsibilities. I say hand the game over to someone else.
And congratulations on becoming a father.
Eh, it's okay.
And i agree, people each think differently, decisions are weighed differently from person to person.
If you think it's worth it, then i would say go for it and good luck with it and may it turn out good for you in the end.
Where is the mom in all of this. How about the grandparents? You can't offload the kid for a few hours a week?
Dont worry mate, i know it sounds counterintuitive, but you can find someone to be solitary with?
There's someone out there with as little need for clinging closeness and nonstop pointless TALKING as you have.
Never lose hope that you'll find someone be there when you need them to, and to not be there when you need them to not be there.
If someone is going to become a parent, they owe it to their kid to be a good parent.
That said, a kid doesn't just eat up free time. Kids devour time, money, sleep, and sanity. Any parent not occasionally driven to the verge of madness, by even the sweetest kid, is a terrible parent whose kid is an absolute monster to everyone else.
>A human choosing to not replicate is as special and meaningful as a bacteria with a terminal mutation.
I disagree, a bacteria has no choice at all in the matter as it comes down to random mutations which determine everything. In the case of humans however any human being at all has the capability to choose not to propagate even if they were otherwise in every single way capable. Our sapience in this way does lend us an ability which is quite unique.
>The desire to not replicate is, to be frank, a trait that evolution -very- heavily selects against.
Which makes our ability to do things that are utterly against what would make sense for a programed organism all that more impressive.
>seriously though, bringing up a well-educated child from a western world will, probably, contribute a lot more to solving these problems than the alternative
But this isn't just a binary situation where there is an either or choice, we could work towards reducing the population growth in all areas if we were serious about it. I mean for instance having better access to contraceptives and education is one of the primary reasons the western world has a fairly good track record of not having huge population explosions like much of the underdeveloped world.
Thanks for the kind words, but that ship sailed a long time ago
Hope is the first step on the road towards dissapointment.
That from bioshock? I don't remember that quote in game but that pic totally looks like Rapture and the Lighthouse.
it indeed is Bioshock
Can't remember who said the line though
Could be coming from objectivism in more general terms.
The longer I live, the more I realize how inscrutable our own inner machinations are, and how utterly powerless we are against the undercurrents of the vast ocean on which we have been cast adrift.
Thinking about it is pointless, it is what it is, it could only ever happen as it happened, letting go is the only way to any kind of peace.
I'm still working on that last part myself, but little by little I feel things slipping away and one day there will be nothing left to let go of.
That's exactly the relationship I have. We're both introverts, and we like doing separate activities in the same room. It's more comfortable knowing someone is there. There's something to be said, when you feel like shit, in a waking fever dream and some blurry angel brings you OJ and puts on your favorite show. Humans are social, even the anti-social ones.
I've got single friends, and it's so sad how they live sometimes. You see a bunch of empty Hungry Man boxes, and it's like, someone get this man a home-cooked meal! A small touch of love goes a long way.
Well, the only reason we attribute the POWER OF FREE WILL to our own choices, and not say to our dog's choice of licking its own balls, is because of our, very human, perspective.
I guess, if you wanna compare a single human in a society to a cell, i guess not procreating would be analogous to apoptosis, good for the society as a whole. The difference is though, that other humans don't share our genes, the cells of our body does.
As for your second point, yeah, you could make that choice. Im just saying that life that decide not to procreate, very shortly, stops being life, and starts being dead.
As for your last point, i pretty much agree. Practically though, we would really be better off promoting birth control and education in africa, india and china than choosing to not procreate judically. The western world does not need to control its population, it's pretty much stable and sustainable, it sounds terribly racist, but it's true. If anything we need to limit our consumption of luxury goods. (Now that's something that would make a difference)
Jesus christ this thread got dark
There are always people who love you.
There is always time to fix things.
Giving up is always more painful than trying and failing
Depression is deadly and can be easily stopped by interacting with people. Even just saying hi to someone on the street can brighten your (and their) day.
It's hard, but it does get easier. You just gotta do it every day.
International business. I'm a translator. True we have programs for it, but they kinda suck and people like to do business with other people, so i figure i have job security for a while. And while i don't expect my children would go into the exact same field as me, i reckon they would find some manner of educated work. Even if that was just designing and programming all the robots.
For the record i don't trust retirement plans. Even though i do have one. In the event it proves insufficient i would like to have a safety net.
It's funny, but a thing that helped me lots was thinking of suicide contra death like a sort of Pascal's Wager.
The probabillity of things making sense and getting better if i should decide to check out early is = 0
The probability of things starting to make sense, me discovering the purpose of life, starting to feel better, or even finding a way to make my combover look halfway decent however miniscule is still
You, i like you.
woops, Meant to write: >0
(Please dont off yourself user)
>he had sex with a girl
Gross
I am interacting with people, although i still prefer just to be left alone.
I gave up a long time ago, it actually makes it easier to get through days when i don't give a damn about most things.
Just me and my thoughts
What do you think about user?
The way I see things, it's a question of having the right fuel to propel you onward. Desires, beliefs, drudges. In the end they all burn the same and if you can attune to yours it will carry you through no matter what. It doesn't matter if you can't control all fine filaments of your own function, just steer the general direction and enjoy the ride.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not preaching free will (actually I'm a hard determinist). I'm just pointing out how humans are built we have so much extra complexity we are much less bound by the machinations of evolution, and instead by worlds of ideas, data and symbols which we have created for ourselves. That is why humans are relatively speaking special compared to other life on this planet.
>The difference is though, that other humans don't share our genes, the cells of our body does.
They don't share the exact genes, but the human species is all very closely related, from a evolutionary perspective the species wide super organism is more important than the individual (this what the selfish gene theory was based upon). To think of this better, imagine the first cell colonies that started growing in biofilms (or whatever the leading theory for multi cellular life's strt is). Even if they didn't share the exact same genes, eventually they did get to the point of sharing a body and not multiplying wildly for the benefit of the whole based on evolutionary pressures.
>Im just saying that life that decide not to procreate, very shortly, stops being life, and starts being dead.
Fair enough.
>the western world does not need to control its population, it's pretty much stable and sustainable,
While the stable and sustainable is true, In my personal view I do think that we likely would be better off reducing population in all parts of the world if possible 7+ billion is already a little over the comfort zone. Ideally if we could slowly reduce the population in a controlled manner I think that those in the future would be that much better off.
>If anything we need to limit our consumption of luxury goods.
Unfortunately too many of the luxuries have become things people are accustomed to, and to compound that problem people in up and coming countries are wanting to adopt our levels of luxury consumption. Honestly I don't know what to do about that problem.
Sex is the most traditional game there is
>implying the child is his
I like the simplicity of saying that suicide is permanent solution for your temporary problems.
Unless you're Buddhist, then it's the other way around.
Indifference is allways easier.
Fighting the enevitable is... It's life? It's basically what life is ALL ABOUT, one more day, one more meal, one more breath.
Life is fighting. Giving up is Death.
Sometimes you're fighting yourself, and your urge to just not give a shit. That's one of the hardest fights there is.
It's an honorable fight. You are honorable user. And you haven't offed yourself yet.
And that means you are still fighting! And as long as you fight you have a chance to win!
You sure you don't need a friend, user?
Life sucks.
But I don't care.
Every day I wake up thinking "Is today the day? Will I finally have the guts to end my meaningless life?". And every day I answer to myself "Fuck off, cunt."
Despite how shitty, boring and depressing life is, I refuse to go down easily.
When life gives you lemons, you threaten it at the gunpoint until it gives you its credit card numbers, PIN codes and property deeds.
Well, it usually starts with the weather, but Life mostly.
What's the next book im going to read?
the next game im going to play?
the next piece of music to listen to?
the daily dose of suicidal thoughts
and more simpler thoughts that can distract me from worse thoughts
You know i have never once considered suicide. I didn't realize it so many people did....
I'd say go on Hiatus until the kid becomes more manageable and then start playing infrequently and up the frequency if you can
I see. That's not all to different from what i think about honestly. Though mine also includes finding a nice Korean girl and upcoming work stuff and excludes the suicidal thoughts.
More or less forgotten what friends are desu
The people that i interact daily don't talk to me and have quite different interest, plus the drink, i hate drinking.
I just carry on with life regardless.
(Disclaimer: At this point we pretty much agree, im just enjoying the debate)
A steady population decline is ideal, yeah. (Even, eventually, in the western world)
The actual question is whether or not a new child in the western world will eventually, through hard work offset more of the problem (Readily available ressources per capita) than it creates.
And i think any child born to parents smart enough to realize the need for self imposed population control will be, through a combination of upbringing and external stimulus from a modern education in a western society.
At least for the foreseeable future.
I hate drinking as well user. I'm sure you can find people with similar interests. Look for people who like the same books and music as you, or since you browse Veeky Forums presumably you like some manner of game. Go to the local gamestore for it and talk shop.
What's your adress user? I wanna send you some books. What kind of games do you like?
[My mail is: [email protected]]
It's bizarre. Nothing beats being alive. If I could, I'd live forever.
Fair points, translation in general probably won't get automated any time soon due to the nuances involved in doing complex works, though I wouldn't be surprised if in the next ten years you started to see stuff like legal documents (where format is standardized), and nonessential translations start being partially done by programs.
>I reckon they would find some manner of educated work. Even if that was just designing and programming all the robots.
Completely fair. The real problem is all the people who won't have access to education and educated work, that's what's worrying in my mind about this whole thing.
So in the end, the worst enemy is myself ?
That's somehow pretty fucking ironic, but somehow also funny
Gamestores went mostly out of buisness in my country m8, most tabletops are dead here, hence why i spend alot of time on /tg
If you act like a wounded animal it's only going to make people want to take care of you even harder.
>The world is overpopulated meme
Not for first world whites it isn't.
OP, if you're still reading this thread, I suggest you do both. Cut down on the frequency of your game, and have one of your other players run a separate game in the time between.
Alternatively, move the story towards a conclusion so you can just be a reoccuring guest player.
>So in the end, the worst enemy is myself ?
Unless you're some 3rd world impoverished cripple, the chances are your biggest restrain are your own habits and inhibitions, yes.
Well yes, life does suck for those without access to education, and it will continue to suck for them, but i don't know that there is anything much i can do about that. And just because life sucks for them doesn't mean i should not try to live my life as well as i can, nor that i should not give every advantage i can to my theoretical children. like i said, i'm a selfish bastard. I care about me, and i care about mine. So long as my kin get along alright i don't really feel all that bad knowing people i have never met and likely will never meet are suffering. I mean i give to charity, but honestly i recognize that is more to sooth my conscience than anything.
You know normally i like to be a bit more optimistic and idealistic about things, but you've really managed to bring out my inner cynic, and i've made some uncomfortable realizations. I kinda hate myself a little bit now.
[email protected]
Video games or Tabletop?
Well shit son, im sorry, im just explaining it as it is
>having the right fuel to propel you onward. Desires, beliefs, drudges
I dont really have that though I just kind of exist
You're being protective. That's what being a dad is all about, providing and protecting for you and your kin.
Dont hate yourself, it's an instinct that has served humanity well for thousands of years and will serve you and your child well too.